Chapter 112 – Power Game
Now that I was already out in the open and about to fight the epic quest target, I figured I could disable the camouflage skills because there was no point in keeping them up. After doing that, I decided to just confirm something, before we started, “So, you’re… Absolutely Inviolable Area?”
“If it feels like too much of a hassle to say it, you can just call me Jerusalem.” He replied.
“I’ll go with Jeru then.” I have no clue what the connection between this area thingy and Jerusalem is, but I’ll take it because his name is annoying, “So, Jeru, you are in the Neutral faction aren’t you? What are you planning on doing after fighting me?” After all, his karma will surely raise a lot after our battle due to how low my karma is, and I don’t think he’d be fine with just staying at the order faction after the deed.
“Oh, that? I guess I’ll just kill the princess?” He instantly replied…
“Eh?” The princess seemed troubled.
“Well, that will be that then.” I replied.
“Eh!?” The princess seemed to be quite worried, but his statement made sense, his karma would definitely fall a lot if he killed the princess after all… I suppose one needs to be willing to do those things if they want to remain in the neutral faction.
“Well, princess, this might be bothersome, but please stay up there for the time being.” I told the princess as I threw her up and tied her to the ceiling. She was quite obviously scared and was also crying, but it couldn’t be helped at a time like this.
But with the preparations out of the way, “Then, nice to meet you Jeru…” I said as I unsheathed my shortsword. At the same time, Jeru took a huge sword out of his back, “Now please die!”
I rushed towards him while throwing a few poisonous needles at him. He blocked them, but this gave me enough time to get close and hit his giant sword from above, forcing it to make a quick downwards swing towards the floor, and due to how big the sword was, this completely threw him off-balance and I was able to cut his neck with my shortsword.
He was able to jump back at the last second and only got a small wound instead of being beheaded though… Not too bad of a reaction, no wonder he was the top player of the recent event.
“I think this will be fun.” I told him.
“Well, I guess most players can’t keep up with this kind of fight.” He replied. I nodded, and then started jumping from thread to thread that I set up, until I got close enough to him and used my threads to throw a chandelier at him from above.
He was able to cut it in half with his giant sword though, and then he dodged my shortsword swing and tried to counter attack, but I jumped back to my threads high up in the air before he could hit me. I also left some poisonous explosives as a souvenir to him.
“Home run!” He shouted as he used his sword as a baseball bat to throw the explosives through the hole in the ceiling that he opened when he came here… I don’t think that’s how a sword should be used, but I guess it works. “Hey, won’t you come down here? It’s a bit hard to fight like this.” He asked me.
“It’s easier to break your foothold like this, though?” I answered him.
“I guess that can’t be helped then…” Immediately after saying this, he jumped high up towards me. It was fast enough to the point I couldn’t dodge the attack, so I had to block it with my shortsword instead… The impact of his giant sword paired up with the momentum of his jump made me unable to hold his attack back though, so I was thrown at the wall from the impact. “How about that!?” He exclaimed.
I giggled, “That’s good!” I replied by quickly jumping back to the fray with my threads while he was still mid-air and attacked him with my shortsword. He blocked it with his sword, but I kicked him immediately after, and since our positions were now reversed with me being the one with most momentum, I was able to throw him down to the ground easily.
He didn’t seem to have received much damage from it… Or rather, he didn’t seem to even be focusing on the battle much. Instead of trying to attack again, he asked me, “Hey, haven’t I met you somewhere before?”
“We did…?” I asked him back… What’s up with this question?
“Yeah, at a garden party… Ichijouji Reina.” He said.
“Oh, so you’re also a noble… I think I might actually recognize you if I think about it… Yahiko Kujou, right?” I replied.
“That’s me, it’s been quite a while, hasn’t it?” He said.
“I didn’t think I’d have left enough of an impression to be remembered.” I told him.
“Well, it just draws some attention when you end up being a wallflower in every single event you attend.” He replied.
“… It’s not as if I like those.” This was getting annoying.
“On another note, I’m surprised you remember my name, when considering your history of remembering names of other players and all that.” He said.
“I just had to learn the names of the other nobles, it couldn’t be helped.” I plainly stated, “But, well, that’s enough, right? So please… Hurry up and die!” I shouted as I jumped towards him again with the threads while he also jumped towards me.
As we clashed a few more times and started using some more skills, the castle was slowly looking closer and closer to ruins. I could vaguely hear the Emperor complaining about it and an advisor urging him to run, but I decided to ignore that and focus on the battle itself instead.
